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New broadband network for Africa approved

Funding for the first phase of an initiative to connect African research centres and link them to an existing European network has been approved by the European Commission.The approval follows a report that identified sufficient IT infrastructure in Africa to support the AfricaConnect Initiative, which aims to improve research collaborations and access to information.The report, released last month (March 22), is based on a one-year Feasibility Study for African-European Research and Education Network Interconnection (FEAST), funded by the European Commission and carried out by the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. Most national research and education networks (NRENs) in Africa are now near, or will soon be near, one of several recently-landed undersea fibre optic cables, the report said. This may enable them to join GÉANT, an existing pan-European research and education network.Arthur Goldstuck, managing director of World Wide Worx, a technology research company in South Africa, said that the new undersea cables bring unprecedented opportunity as well as challenges to the continent's research community.